Piling it on The Olympic Highway at Kapooka carries around 4,500 vehicles per day including 750 heavy vehicles. A further 2,200 vehicles turn off the Highway to access the Kapooka Army Base via Camp Access Road. The existing highway alignment crosses the main southern railway line over an 1880 brick arch bridge with two 90-degree bends forming the bridge approaches, which has been the cause of many serious accidents. Roads and Maritime Services are spending $55 million to realign the Olympic Highway and replace the existing bridge. The Principal Contractors for the new Kapooka Bridge and Olympic Highway project is BMD Constructions. They subcontracted award-winning Caporn Piling Pty Ltd to strengthen and stabilise ground conditions to support the dual carriageway road bridge and realignment work for the project. Established in 2012, Caporn Piling is a leading Australian privately owned piling contractor. The business owners’ experience in the Piling Industry spans 50 years, having previously owned the largest Piling Contractor in Australia, plus Managing Director, Greg Caporn, offers 18 years of industry knowledge, combined with a lifetime of being immersed in the Civil Engineering environment. “Caporn Piling design and install all types of piling solutions, including bored, driven, CFA, displacement, sheet piling, marine piling and falsework installation across QLD and NSW,” Greg said. “We have some of the most experienced pilers in Australia within our group and our team of over 30 people have worked on some of the largest and technically challenging projects in Australia. Together with 96
NSW PROJECT FEATURE Kapooka Bridge/Olympic Highway
our quality equipment we are able to offer the most competitive and effective piling design and construction services in the market.” On the Kapooka project Caporn Piling have supplied and installed 38 No.900mm diameter bored piles to 22.2m deep, at two pier locations and two abutments with extensions to 8.2m high. “The actual ground conditions at pile locations were our biggest challenge,” added Greg. “They revealed harder rock than the earlier Geotechnical and Bore Log reports. This meant slower progress and deeper pre-drilling.” Caporn Piling is tri-qualification accredited in Quality, Safety and Environment and offers a full design capability with input from some of the most experienced contractors and design engineers in the world. During 2016 Caporn Piling will be relocating to a new purpose built office and plant yard facility, plus expanding permanently into NSW, on the back of their first year operating in this region. For more information contact Caporn Piling Pty Ltd, 306 Duffield Road, Clontarf QLD 4019, phone 07 3889 3989, fax 07 3283 2219, email admin@capornpiling.com.au, website capornpiling.com.au AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL CONSTRUCTION REVIEW